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I awoke seven times from within the same dream. I was stuck. It was a dream within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream. Each time I crawled out of my mind’s subconscious, I saw a new reality. Each time I had to learn that I was still dreaming and none of it was real. On the seventh time I awoke, I was awake, but wondered if I was still dreaming. I could not tell, at first, what was real. I didn’t want to be fooled again.

My body was drained of any energy that should have been replenished during slumber. I got up to move around, as I had in each of the dreams. My eyes struggled for a moment to focus on my surroundings. My legs were shaky as I tried to walk. My thoughts were hazy with memories of weird, vivid images that were very real. Except that they were not real. My body ached, but that was not proof enough that I was no longer trapped in a dream. I have felt pain in my dreams.

It is one of the strangest feelings, waking up to find out that you are still dreaming. How could I have fallen asleep in a dream, then fallen asleep with that dream, and then again, and again, and again, and again, and again? I remember during one of the dreams thinking that I was trapped in my mind, or that maybe I had fallen into a coma. While still dreaming, I tried to figure out what would have put me in such a state. I find it odd that most often I cannot control my dreams while I’m dreaming, but that I sometimes have my wits enough about me during some dreams to think rationally and try to force myself awake.

But each time I awoke, I was dreaming. Each time, it took me a few minutes to realize I was still dreaming. Each time I had to force myself awake. And even when I woke up from the last dream, I questioned whether or not I was, in fact, awake. I don’t often sleep well, but I deal with it. However, when a dream involving multiple dreams plagues my sleep, it’s horrible. It’s a nightmare. It ruins my day. I would be better off not sleeping at all. I think that’s why my body and mind will sometimes make efforts to avoid falling asleep. Maybe they’re trying to protect me. I don’t know. Just a thought.

By the way, Sigmund Freud was wrong. I do dream in color.

Sometimes I wake up yelling, sometimes shaking or sweating, or otherwise disturbed. Sometimes a combination of those. And it’s always worse when I can’t even remember what I dreamt. When I wake up in the middle of the night from a dream I remember, I can usually go back to sleep after coming to terms that it was just a dream. Not every time, but more often than not. But when I can’t remember what startled me from slumber to fear, I lie in bed trying to piece it together, trying to figure out what is causing the turmoil in my head. But I have no memory of it and it can’t be proven because I have no evidence that a dream happened at all. There are no pieces to put together. It’s gone. I am chasing something that does not exist. And I’m losing sleep over it.

I call these my Illusive Dreams, the ones that wake me up in a state of terror but I can’t recall them. The ones I know I had, but I have no idea what the dream contained. That bothers me deeply. No, we don’t always remember our dreams. On many of the nights that I do sleep well, I don’t remember my dreams more than half the time. But I think most of us will remember a dream that jolts us from sleep into a brief paranoid mess as we come to the conclusion that it was just a dream. What if the illusive dreams aren’t dreams at all? What else could they be? Although I wake up feeling like I experienced a nightmare, I still have no tangible evidence or memory of it. Maybe it wasn’t a dream at all. Maybe it was real. But what is real in the subconscious of slumber?

Or maybe my life is just a dream that someone else is having and none of this is real. If that’s the case, whoever you are, please wake up. And wake up soon, I really don’t want to go work tomorrow. For the rest of you who are awake and reading this, thank you for stopping by. Sweet dreams, sleep well, happy thoughts. Good day, God bless.